Life, Adventures and Travels in California

Thomas Jefferson Farnham (1804-1848) was a native New Englander with a taste for adventure. A lawyer by trade, he was the unlikely leader of a 19-person wagon train that set out from Peoria, Illinois in 1839, destined for Oregon. Along the way, he advocated for the protection of American settlers in regions that had not yet been claimed by either the Americans or the British, developing a petition for the federal government to extend its jurisdiction into the area. His Life, Adventures and Travels in California is a singular example of the mid-19th century American mindset of westward expansion, and is illustrated with copious woodcuts of the curious animals and unfamiliar peoples he encountered on his travels—the publisher highlighted this by adding the title Farnham’s Pictorial Travels on the book’s embellished binding.